The present invention relates to apparatus for winding wire onto an arbor, and more particularly to apparatus for helically winding wire onto an arbor having a straight or curved center line and a circular or a nearly circular cross-section whereby each helical turn of the wire is nearly perpendicular to the center line of the arbor.
There is a need for apparatus which can wind wire into tight helical turns about an arbor having a curved or straight center line and a circular or a nearly circular cross-section. Normally, such wire winding apparatus is designed to wind wire about an arbor having a straight center line and a circular cross-section. Applications for apparatus of the above-described type are widespread and include such diverse fields as wire reinforcement of high pressure pipes, fabrication of overmoded waveguides, and cable lashing. Some features which are highly desired in such apparatus are: the ability to wind tight uniform helical turns about an arbor having either a straight or a curved center line and either a circular or a nearly circular cross-section; maintaining constant adjustable tension in the wire; and controlling the center of gravity of the wire winding apparatus as its weight gets redistributed due to the payoff of wire from the spool.
Various devices have been proposed for winding wire about an arbor. However, the proposed devices suffer from various disadvantages. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,890,739 discloses an apparatus for wrapping elongated material or the like about a cable having a frame or spool holder which has two parallel, spaced apart side members which are attached to the outside of a semi-circular shell or the like. A spool of wire is held between the side members and wire from the spool is guided through a hole in the shell. The hole in the shell coincides with a plurality of successive grooves in the shell which guide the wire into a helical or spiral configuration about the cable. The device is manually rotated about the cable thereby winding the elongated material about the cable.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,358,064 discloses a machine for wrapping a pipe with tape or another strip of material. The machine includes a frame defined by a pair of spaced apart V-shaped ends and two pairs of wheels which straddle the pipe. The first pair of wheels are connected to one end of the frame and the second pair of wheels are connected to the other end of the frame. The tape is wound onto the pipe when the frame is rotated about the pipe. One end of the frame is rotatable relative to the other end so that the pair of wheels on one end can move out of alignment with the pairs on the other end in order to change the path of travel of the frame on the pipe from a circular to a helical path.
As previously stated, the wire winding apparatus disclosed by the patents identified above suffers from various disadvantages; namely, they are not designed to wind wire about a curved as well as a straight arbor having either a circular or nearly circular cross-section, they do not maintain a constant adjustable tension on the wire, and they do not provide a device for controlling the location of the center of gravity of the apparatus.
The present invention solves the above described disadvantages by providing a wire winding apparatus which has the ability to wind wire about a curved as well as a straight arbor having either a circular or nearly circular cross-section, maintain a constant adjustable tension in the wire being wound and control the location of the center of gravity of the wire winding apparatus during the winding operation. Still further, the wire winding apparatus has the ability to retract onto the spool of wire one-half of one revolution of wire previously laid onto the arbor without losing tension in the wire.